Acute water shortage - water, the great leveller

We never know the worth of water till the well is dry – wise words, perhaps too late!

Occupants of many apartments in Bangalore will vouch for that. Occupants in one of the apartment complexes recently shelled out Rs 100,000 for water. Reason – the bore wells dried out! Independent houses in Bangalore generally depend on tanker services during such a crisis. But apartments cannot do that. Fortunately a bore well owner agreed to sell water - for a good price! The increasing number of apartments and independent houses has made water shortage acute. Many apartment complexes, even those by well known builders are not equipped to handle such a crisis.

Things are no different in my home state, Kerala. A cousin’s house has a well, but the water is brown and salty and cannot be used for washing or drinking. The government supply of water was in abundance during the elections. Following the elections, there was no water supply for many days. This meant that people had to carry their clothes to other houses with wells for washing! Many had to make do with dirty water in bathrooms. They were too tired to fetch more water in autorickshaws.

For the assembly elections, a prominent party promised us water. No one actually believed in the party’s ideals, but voted for water - even the educated elite Bangaloreans did so. We laugh at poor people voting for one kilogram of rice, for a cycle or for a television set. But then we also vote for water supply or electricity for houses or tarred roads to our houses. Long live Democracy!